Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 Singing of dubious desire: Imperio Argentina and Penélope Cruz as Nazi Germany’s exotic Other
- 2 Voicing gender: transgender performance and the national imaginary in the Spanish cinema of the democratic era
- 3 Bien pagá: popular song in the films of Pedro Almodóvar
- 4 El otro lado de la cama: remixed Transition (1973–82)
- 5 On the function of punk aesthetics in Salto al vacío and Historias del Kronen
- 6 Mobile soundscapes in the quinqui film
- 7 Song-shaped cinema: the performance of Gypsy and Basque songs in relation to film form
- 8 Travelling song: music, iteration and translation in La leyenda del tiempo
- 9 Sound moves: immigration and music in Cosas que dejé en La Habana
- 10 The Afro-Cuban soundscape of Mexico City: authenticating spaces of violence and immorality in Salón México and Víctimas del pecado
- 11 Blues traveller: Habana Blues and the framing of diasporic cubanía
- 12 Dancing in the dark: Saura’s Tango
- 13 Re-making Frida Kahlo through song in Frida
- 14 ‘Silence! Fado is about to be sung’: fado and the comédia à portuguesa
- 15 Sounds from Brazil: brasilidade and the rise of the music documentary
- 16 Soundtrack to roguery: music and malandragem in the city
- 17 The Brazilian chanchada’s musical moments and the performance of identity
- 18 Orpheus in Babylon: music, myth and realism in the fi lms of Rio de Janeiro
- Index
18 - Orpheus in Babylon: music, myth and realism in the fi lms of Rio de Janeiro
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 December 2025
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Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 Singing of dubious desire: Imperio Argentina and Penélope Cruz as Nazi Germany’s exotic Other
- 2 Voicing gender: transgender performance and the national imaginary in the Spanish cinema of the democratic era
- 3 Bien pagá: popular song in the films of Pedro Almodóvar
- 4 El otro lado de la cama: remixed Transition (1973–82)
- 5 On the function of punk aesthetics in Salto al vacío and Historias del Kronen
- 6 Mobile soundscapes in the quinqui film
- 7 Song-shaped cinema: the performance of Gypsy and Basque songs in relation to film form
- 8 Travelling song: music, iteration and translation in La leyenda del tiempo
- 9 Sound moves: immigration and music in Cosas que dejé en La Habana
- 10 The Afro-Cuban soundscape of Mexico City: authenticating spaces of violence and immorality in Salón México and Víctimas del pecado
- 11 Blues traveller: Habana Blues and the framing of diasporic cubanía
- 12 Dancing in the dark: Saura’s Tango
- 13 Re-making Frida Kahlo through song in Frida
- 14 ‘Silence! Fado is about to be sung’: fado and the comédia à portuguesa
- 15 Sounds from Brazil: brasilidade and the rise of the music documentary
- 16 Soundtrack to roguery: music and malandragem in the city
- 17 The Brazilian chanchada’s musical moments and the performance of identity
- 18 Orpheus in Babylon: music, myth and realism in the fi lms of Rio de Janeiro
- Index
Summary
The music of Rio de Janeiro's streets and hillsides has played more than a mere supporting role in cinematic representations of the city. This chapter takes the seminal narrative of Orpheus as a starting point for interpreting the role of music in screen representations of Rio de Janeiro since the 1950s, and especially in the performance of ideas of redemption and perdition for a city in crisis. The musical idioms of funk carioca and rap have supplied Afro-Brazilians with a critical and self-assertive language for characterising their place in Brazilian society and culture, a language we could define as 'realist'. This rhetoric of realism is drawn from 'foreign' musical styles whose controversial, critical edge precisely draws attention to the disjuncture between Afro-Brazilian and Brazilian, to the social difference that divides the city from itself, the City of God from Rio de Janeiro.
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- Screening songs in Hispanic and Lusophone cinema , pp. 298 - 314Publisher: Manchester University PressFirst published in: 2025
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